A Slower Suicide
by lovablegeek
Summary: [PreRENT] Mark knows the facts about Roger, but not the reasons. [One shot]


**A/N: **Written for speedrent challenge #48. Lee gave me the idea for this, so much credit and love goes to her. Also, I stole Mark's past from Evie's Mark. Yeah.

* * *

Mark and Roger know a lot of things about each other they don't tell anyone else, both little things and big things. Roger knows that Mark tried to slit his wrists in high school, after his girlfriend Jenny killed herself. He knows that Mark's scarf was a gift from Jenny, before she died. Mark knows exactly when Roger started using, the exact day, and almost the exact time, and he knows exactly when Roger quit. He knows the words to every song Roger's ever written, even when Roger's forgotten some of them.  
But there are some things even Mark doesn't know, and Roger isn't about to tell him. Maybe Mark knows the facts, and the outward effects, but he's never understood the reasons, and probably never will.

**Fact:** Eight months and twenty-five days. The amount of time Roger spent refusing to leave the loft.

Mark was there most of the time. Someone had to make sure Roger ate and slept, and someone had to try to get him to leave rejoin the world again, or at least get him to do something other than stare blankly out the window. Not that those attempts ever had much effect, but somebody had to try.  
Roger wished Mark would just leave him alone. He told him that once or twice, in less than gentle terms. He never said exactly why that was, or that he thought maybe if Mark wasn't there he could stop sitting there in self-loathing and _do_ something about it. Mark would back off for a little while, figuring it was withdrawal and fear talking. It wasn't.

**Fact:** April used to cut herself. When Roger found out, he threw out the razors and hid every knife in the house for months.

It was actually amazing she never found them. He hadn't exactly hid them _well_, shoved in a box in the back of the closet behind some other boxes filled with Mark's film and some old notebooks of Roger's and assorted junk. He'd just been in such a hurry to get anything sharp away from her, he hadn't much thought about whether or not the closet happened to be a _good_ hiding place.  
He didn't bring the knives out again until some of the others in the loft got annoyed and told him to put them back. He did, but only reluctantly. Yes, he was afraid April might hurt herself again—but he was also half-afraid, that quiet, sneaking fear that he'd never admit even to himself, that with the knives in sight he might just use them too.

**Fact:** March 9, 1993. 3 AM EST. The day Roger started using.

That one, Roger never could figure how Mark found out. Yes, he'd been awake when Roger came home that night—morning, whatever—and maybe even had stayed up to wait for him, but Roger hadn't said a word to him as he came in the door, just went straight to his room. Maybe it was simple deduction, that time, or maybe he was more obviously high than he thought.  
A couple of his band members had been using before that, but they hadn't really talked him into it, just helped a little. When he used, when he was high, it was the first time he'd felt good, even okay, for almost as long as he could remember.

**Fact:** Benny once offered to pay for rehab, if Roger wanted to go. Roger refused.

It wasn't just that he needed the drugs, though that was part of it. He needed the drugs to keep him stable, keep him sane, whatever his friends thought about it. Without the drugs, he knew he'd lose whatever stability he had, but he could hardly tell Benny that. Roger was the immortal rock star, immune to danger, untouchable—he used drugs because he wanted to, not because he needed to. Right. And of course it wasn't _at all_ because if he weren't killing himself slowly with the drugs, he was afraid he'd find some other, faster way to crash and burn.  
Besides, if he decided to go to rehab, they'd probably get him a shrink, analyze him, whatever. Roger was afraid of what they might find.

**Fact:** July 4, 1995. The day Roger ODed and was taken to the hospital.

He almost died that day, and had to stay in the hospital for a week. He scared Mark to death and promised he wouldn't do it again, but the fact of the matter is that it wasn't an accident. Maybe he'd been trying to forget about April for just a little while, maybe he'd been trying to get the high he hadn't been able to for almost a year now, to feel like his world wasn't falling apart at the seams. Or maybe he just hated the idea of waiting for the virus in his blood to kill him.  
When Roger looks back on it, he likes that explanation the best.

**Fact:** March 23, 1995. The day April killed herself.

Roger wishes he had her courage.


End file.
